I’m back. Took some time off for Christmas and healing. The latter was needed because a small bug attacked me the day after Christmas. It laid me low, and my daughter, and now my son-in-law. I feel nearly healed today. I can breathe again, and my cough is only occasional. It's weird being sick away from home but I’m finding my way.

I like public transportation. I’m staying in Virginia just outside DC. Anywhere I want to go in the town, there’s a metro line that will get me there.I like the convenience, the commonality, the collegiality of it.

The big trip is off to a good start. Our small army of a family hit DC yesterday and immediately set off in multiple directions to see multiple sites. We have lots of first time visitors to our nation's capital and they all had things they wanted to see–The Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Museum of US History, the Mall, the Capital, the monuments. We rode the Metro like veterans, bundled up against the cold, ate dinner together, and had a boys and girls night out. It was glorious.

It’s a travel day. My bags are packed, and I’m ready to go. It’s cold here, but colder there. As per usual, it feels as though there are a million more things I should be doing prior to departure. But history has shown it’s best to slow down.

The stars on a cold clear night sure seem big and bright, and closer, too. As if they were just over the treetops. And last night as I left a friend’s house in the chill of the evening, I could see Orion’s belt, clear as day, and it felt as though I could reach up and unbuckle it, and as I drove through the dark, I surprised the moon resting on a hilltop, taking a break before it continued its journey into the night of a December sky.

It never fails. Birthdays. Christmas. Something strikes my fancy. It feels perfect for the intended. I buy it. I wrap it. But inevitably, along the way, from buying through wrapping and even giving, doubt sets in. The brilliance of the gift, it’s perfectness, fades.

I’m back in the saddle so to speak. Yesterday, I finished the repairs to a fence I started several weeks ago. I got the old sections securely tied to the new poles, and now we’re right as rain.

I’ve been out and about the last several days, untethered from my computer and the urge to write. Spent time away with friends, listening to music, and socializing.

It’s a clear, cold morning. The sort of morning that makes me wish for a fire. But my fireplace doesn’t draw. A construction oversight left us with a firebox that is too small. My bad.

Digging postholes. I’ve done it all my life to varying degrees of success. As a new homeowner in the 70s one of the first things I did was put up a fence, for privacy in my yard.

If life consists of small victories, then I achieved one yesterday. A victory so small as to go unnoticed by anyone but me, and you, now that I’m telling the tale.

The cold and wet drove me indoors yesterday. It was a day of laundry and TV sports. During the course of the day, I barely saw a mention of Pearl Harbor and the Japanese attack in 1941. I guess it’s time of living in infamy is up.

I dug out another old posthole yesterday. This one had the complication of being right beside a second old posthole. So, there were two blobs of concrete and rotted timber. Talk about hard.

Spent a few chill hours on the golf course yesterday. We got around in under four hours, which is how the game of golf is meant to be played. My score was high because my putting and chipping was it’s usual unglamorous self.

Some mornings I wake up and my words are right there in bed beside me. Then on some mornings, I find them sitting comfortably on the couch or hanging around the coffee maker.

Rain. Nice. Soft rain, too. The rain barrel that was nearly empty yesterday is now full. It would be good if it fell all day, but I have a feeling it’s a short term thing.

I got my book yesterday. Six Impossible Things. It’s less than 100 pages but I think it’s going to open up the world of quantum mechanics for me, or at least give me something to think about that’s bigger than myself.

Sunday was a day of rest for me. I did find and fix a leak in the pool plumbing. Courtesy of a Mockingbird.

I’m doing a pretty great job at tearing up things. I spent most of yesterday digging out 80 lbs of dried cement from an old post hole. The post in question had rotted.